New member - question about spicing plum wine?

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Helix

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Hello everyone - I'm a new member here. I'm still a little new to this brewing stuff, but I've been doing homemade wines off and on through the years with decent success.

Two months ago, I was gifted with about 30 pounds of plums. I think sand plums, but I'm not sure the exact variety. I followed a pretty basic recipe and added some white grape juice concentrate for a little body. The fermentation stuck and I ended up pitching the yeast a second time. When it took off, the fermentation was rapid.

Despite the problems, I'm two months into the batch and I've ended up with a dry, tart plum wine. I'm not displeased with the results, but other than "dry" or "tart" it's a little bland. I suppose it's a little soon to judge, it's obviously a pretty young wine that needs some aging, but I'm thinking of spicing it.

My original idea was to bottle it for gifts at Christmas, so spicing it goes in with that theme well. I don't have any experience with spicing a wine in bulk or at bottling. I also considered just making up little jars of mulling spices to give with it, but of there's a way to do it in the bottle, I'd like to try that first.

I'm also tempted to back sweeten it, but have absolutely no experience in this department.

Thoughts? Ideas?

Thanks in advance!
 
Helix said:
Hello everyone - I'm a new member here. I'm still a little new to this brewing stuff, but I've been doing homemade wines off and on through the years with decent success.

Two months ago, I was gifted with about 30 pounds of plums. I think sand plums, but I'm not sure the exact variety. I followed a pretty basic recipe and added some white grape juice concentrate for a little body. The fermentation stuck and I ended up pitching the yeast a second time. When it took off, the fermentation was rapid.

Despite the problems, I'm two months into the batch and I've ended up with a dry, tart plum wine. I'm not displeased with the results, but other than "dry" or "tart" it's a little bland. I suppose it's a little soon to judge, it's obviously a pretty young wine that needs some aging, but I'm thinking of spicing it.

My original idea was to bottle it for gifts at Christmas, so spicing it goes in with that theme well. I don't have any experience with spicing a wine in bulk or at bottling. I also considered just making up little jars of mulling spices to give with it, but of there's a way to do it in the bottle, I'd like to try that first.

I'm also tempted to back sweeten it, but have absolutely no experience in this department.

Thoughts? Ideas?

Thanks in advance!

I have a batch of plum wine myself right now.

I experimented with back sweetening and found that adding some simple syrup (mixture of sugar and water 1:1) took the edge off the tartness.

Wait until your wine clears before back sweetening the batch, then treat with potassium sorbate (1/2 tsp per gallon).

You can experiment with adding your spices the same way. Use a couple of ounces and add spices until you find the flavor you want.
 

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